Contents

Former Las Vegasshowgirl Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) inherits the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband, Donald. Phelps receives a lucrative offer to move the team to Miami, but she must first trigger the escape clause in the team's contract with the city of Cleveland. To do this, she must cause attendance at the games to fall below a certain level. She decides to replace existing players with aging veterans and inexperienced rookies in the hopes that a bad team will cause attendance to decline. They need to finish dead last to void the lease to move the team to Miami. Phelps hires Lou Brown, the manager for the Toledo Mud Hens, to manage the team and promotes former manager Charlie Donovan to general manager.

During spring training in Tucson, Brown and his staff discover the new team has a number of interpersonal issues as well as their own struggles with the game. The team's lone star, third baseman Roger Dorn, is an egotistical prima donna whose skills have faded. Staff ace Eddie Harris has to rely on illegally doctoring the baseball due to his weakening arm. Pedro Cerrano, a voodoo-practicing Cuban import with significant power, cannot hit breaking balls and resorts to unorthodox methods to try to get himself to do so, some of which lead to a culture clash with the devoutly Christian Harris. Veteran catcher Jake Taylor, a former star turned drunk who had spent the last few years playing in the Mexican League after his knees gave out, has lost so much strength on his throws that he cannot reach second base.

The two players who draw the most attention are brash young outfielder Willie Mays Hayes, who simply showed up at spring training without an invite, and pitcher Rick Vaughn, a convicted felon on work release from a California prison. Like the others, they too have issues. Hayes is by far the fastest player on the team, but can only hit pop flies. Vaughn can throw a fastball well above 90 miles an hour, but has no control over it. His attitude causes him to run afoul of Dorn, who cannot stand him.

The team, predictably, starts the season on a losing streak. Vaughn in particular struggles with his control, including a sequence against the New York Yankees where he walks the bases loaded on twelve pitches and then gives up a grand slam home run to their best hitter Clu Haywood. His pitching earns him the nickname "Wild Thing", which is initially derisive. Just before he is sent down to the minors to work on his control, Lou discovers Vaughn's control issues stem from the fact that he has trouble with his vision. After being fitted with glasses, Vaughn's performance improves and the team begins to win. Meanwhile,Taylor discovers that his ex-girlfriend Lynn is living in Cleveland and tries to reconcile with her despite her being engaged to another man.

Phelps, angered by the team's improvement, tries to demoralize them by removing team amenities. She replaces their chartered team jet, first with a rickety propeller plane and then an old bus. She then refuses to fix their workout equipment, and even has the hot water to the locker room turned off. Despite her efforts the team continues to win and brings themselves into contention for the division championship.

Eventually Charlie is able to sneak behind the owner's back and tell Lou what is really going on. Lou then calls a team meeting before the next game and tells the squad that the only reason they were brought together was because Mrs. Phelps believed that they would be so bad that not only would they finish last, but the escape clause would be triggered. Not only that, but all of the players on the current roster would be released at the end of the season no matter the outcome. With nothing to lose, Taylor says they should just focus on winning the pennant and nothing else. To give them extra motivation, Lou produces a cardboard cutout of the owner from her showgirl days; for each win, the team peels off a section of clothing.

The team succeeds in tying the division with the New York Yankees, leading to a one-game playoff to determine the champions. However, Lou decides to start Harris in place of Vaughn due to his experience. Vaughn later ends up in bed with a woman who he later finds out is Suzanne Dorn, Roger's wife; she had slept with Vaughn to repay her husband for being unfaithful during a victory party.

In the playoff game in Cleveland, the Yankees take an early lead but Cerrano is able to overcome his inability to hit a curveball and hits a home run to tie the game. In the top of the 9th with the bases loaded, with Harris tiring and the Yankees' best hitter, first baseman Clu Haywood, due up, Lou calls for Vaughn to come in. Taylor questions the move, considering Vaughn has not been able to get Haywood out, but Lou says he has a feeling Vaughn is "due".

Just before Vaughn begins his warmup throws, Dorn walks to the mound. Instead of confronting him about his wife's affair, he encourages Vaughn to strike Haywood out. Vaughn does and preserve the tie. The Yankees respond by bringing in "The Duke", their headhunting closer, to face the Indians in the bottom of the ninth.

With two outs, Hayes reaches on a single to bring Taylor to the plate. After Hayes steals second, Taylor signals to his manager his idea for a play. Lou agrees and the sign is given to his third base coach. Taylor then points to the outfield to "call his shot" like Babe Ruth famously did. The Duke responds by throwing a hard fastball at Taylor's head, knocking him down.

Undaunted, the stubborn Taylor gets back up and again points to the outfield. As The Duke winds up, Hayes takes off for third base. Taylor lays down a bunt, which throws the Yankees off guard as nobody saw it coming. As Taylor charges toward first, Hayes is waved around third. Taylor is able to beat the throw to first, while Hayes attempts to score. Haywood throws home but Hayes slides around the tag and scores the winning run.

As the team celebrates, Dorn punches Vaughn in the face for what happened the night before but then quickly pulls him up so they can keep celebrating. Taylor spots Lynn in the stands, no longer wearing her engagement ring. The two rush to hug each other as the city celebrates the victory.

The theatrical release's ending includes Rachel Phelps, apparently unable to move the team because of increased attendance, angry and disappointed about the team's success. An alternate ending on the "Wild Thing Edition" DVD shows a very different characterization of Phelps.[3] Lou tenders his resignation and tells Phelps that he can't in good conscience work for her after she sought to sabotage the team for her own personal gain. Phelps then tells him that, in fact, she loves the Indians and never intended to move them. However, when she inherited the club from her late husband, it was on the brink of bankruptcy. Unable to afford top flight players, she decided to take a chance on unproven players from the lower leagues, whom she personally scouted, and talented older players who were generally considered washed up. She tells Lou that she likewise felt that he was the right manager to bring the ragtag group together.

Phelps conceived the Miami scheme and adopted a catty, vindictive persona to unify and motivate the team. As the players believed that she wanted the Indians to fail, she was able to conceal that the team could not afford basic amenities such as chartered jet travel behind a veil of taking them away to spite the players.

Lou does not resign, but Phelps reasserts her authority by saying that if he shares any part of their conversation with anyone, she will fire him.

This alternate ending was actually the original ending and was filmed and shown to test screening audiences before the movie's release. The producers said that although the twist ending worked as a resolution to the plot, they scrapped it after preview audiences responded negatively, preferring the Phelps character as a villain.

The film's opening montage is a series of somber blue-collar images of the Cleveland landscape synchronized to the score of Randy Newman's "Burn On": an ode to the infamous day in Cleveland when the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire.

Much of the film's spring training scenes were shot at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona, which was the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1992. The production used members of the University of Arizona Wildcats baseball team as extras. [4]

Despite being set in Cleveland, the film was principally shot in Milwaukee because it was cheaper and the producers were unable to work around the schedules of the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns. Milwaukee County Stadium, then the home of the Brewers (and three Green Bay Packers games per season), doubles as Cleveland Stadium for the film, although several exterior shots of Cleveland Stadium were used, including some aerial shots taken during an Indians game. In fact, the sign for the TV station atop the scoreboard is for WTMJ, the NBC affiliate for Milwaukee. One of the ending scenes of the movie is in West Milwaukee's legendary restaurant, 4th Base which showcases their unique horseshoe bar that is shown in the celebration scenes. Another restaurant scene, at the then Gritz Pazazz on Milwaukee's north side, is no longer open for business. Both facilities have since been demolished: the playing field of County Stadium is now a Little League baseball field known as Helfaer Field, while the rest of the former site is now a parking lot for the Brewers' new home, Miller Park; the new Cleveland Browns stadium (now FirstEnergy Stadium), a football-only facility owned by the City of Cleveland and used by the Browns, sits on the site of its predecessor.[5]

The film was notable for featuring several actors who would go on to stardom: Snipes and Russo were relative unknowns before the movie was released, while Haysbert remained best known as Pedro Cerrano until he portrayed US President David Palmer on the television series 24. The longshoreman who is occasionally seen commenting and is shown in the final celebration inside a bar is Neil Flynn, who later achieved fame playing the Janitor in Scrubs. This is Flynn's first credited movie role.

The film also featured former Major League players, including 1982 American League Cy Young Award winner Pete Vuckovich as Yankees first baseman Clu Haywood, former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Willie Mueller as the Yankees pitcher Duke Simpson, known as "The Duke", and former Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager as third-base coach Duke Temple. Former catcher and longtime Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker played the Indians' broadcaster Harry Doyle. The names of several crewmembers were also used for peripheral players.

Sheen himself was a pitcher on his high school's baseball team. At the time of filming Major League, his own fastball topped out at 85 miles per hour. (In 2011, Sheen said that he had used steroids for nearly two months to improve his athletic abilities in the film.)[6]

The film debuted at No. 1 at the box office[7] and received generally positive reviews.[8][9][10] It has an 82% "fresh" rating on review website Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The consensus states, "Major League may be predictable and formulaic, but buoyed by the script's light, silly humor—not to mention the well-built sports action sequences and funny performances."[11]

When he joined the Cubs in 1989 (the same year the film was released), pitcher Mitch Williams' extravagant wind-up and release, and his frequent wild pitches, earned him the nickname "Wild Thing." As with Rick Vaughn's character, the Wrigley Field organist played "Wild Thing" as Williams came out of the bullpen. A few years later, in 1993 with the Phillies, Williams started wearing the number 99 on his jersey, the same number that Vaughn wears in the film.[13]

In the years since its release Major League has become a beloved film of many professional baseball players and announcers, and is often referenced during game broadcasts. For example, in 2014, for the film's 25th anniversary, Major League catcher David Ross filmed a one-man tribute to the film, with Ross playing the part (among others) of Lou Brown, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hayes, Rick Vaughn, and Roger Dorn.[14] Additionally, as part of their 2014 "Archives" set, the trading card company Topps celebrated the film's 25th anniversary by creating baseball cards (using the same design as the company's 1989 base set) of Roger Dorn, Jake Taylor, Eddie Harris, Rachel Phelps, Rick Vaughn, and "Jobu."[15]

In 2017, the University of Arizona men's baseball team created a parody of Major League, which was filmed at UA's current home field, Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona. Hi Corbett was the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1992. The star of the short film is outfielder Matt "Mays" Frazier, who played the role of Snipes' Willie Mays Hayes character from the original film. Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn and Roger Dorn are also parodied, and Arizona coach Jay Johnson plays the role of Indians coach Lou Brown.[16]

Major League became an inspiration for the real Cleveland Indians and the city, given the previously long-standing Cleveland sports curse that had left Cleveland without any sporting championships in between 1964 and 2016 (when the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers won their first title in their 46-year history). The Indians reached the 2016 World Series, but lost in heartbreaking fashion to the similarly cursed Cubs. Between 1995 and 2016, the team went to the World Series three times, though losing each time.[3]

Soon after the film's 25th anniversary in 2015, a company called "The Jobu Lifestyle" began producing figurines of Jobu (Pedro Cerrano's voodoo figure). The packaging is a reference to Cerrano's locker that made up Jobu's shrine.[18][19]

In news coverage of the 2017 World Baseball Classic, Team Israel's outfielder Cody Decker made a comparison between Jobu and the team's mascot, "Mensch on a Bench", a five-foot-tall stuffed toy that looks a bit like a rabbi or Hasidic Jew: "He’s a mascot, he’s a friend, he’s a teammate, he’s a borderline deity to our team.... He brings a lot to the table.... Every team needs their Jobu. He was ours. He had his own locker, and we even gave him offerings: Manischewitz, gelt, and gefilte fish... He is everywhere and nowhere all at once. His actual location is irrelevant because he exists in higher metaphysical planes. But he’s always near."[20][21][22][23]

Due to the success of the film, two sequels have been produced neither of which achieved the original's success. Major League II returned most of the original stars, with the notable exception of Wesley Snipes, and focused on the following season and the players' reaction to the previous season's success. Major League: Back to the Minors again starred Corbin Bernsen, but this time, as the owner of the Minnesota Twins, attempting to turn around the Twins' AAA team, the Buzz. A possible third sequel, Major League 3, (which was to ignore Back to the Minors) was reported in 2010 to be in development by original writer and producer David S. Ward. Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Snipes would return, with the plot revolving around Ricky Vaughn coming out of retirement to work with a young player.[24] In 2015, Morgan Creek Productions announced that the sequel was still in the works.[25]

In 2017, Morgan Creek announced plans to reboot their classic films from the 1980s and 1990s as television series or movies, following the success of The Exorcist television series reboot. Several films in early stages of development include film series Young Guns, Major League, and Ace Ventura.[26]

^Although, according to an interview on The Dan Patrick Show (October 22, 2008), Williams' number change had nothing to do with the Major League film. Williams said he had wanted the number 99 for years because of his admiration for the football player Mark Gastineau, who also wore number 99. Williams said that he did not change his number until 1993 because that was his first chance to do it.